


(Locked Together Like) Two Shards of Beach Glass

by jpnadia



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: But The Feelings Are Grief, Camilla Hect's Bulletproof Ethics, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Gore, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Meditations on Consent, Porn with Feelings, Rope Bondage, Sex Pollen, Sort Of, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, past Cam/Pal if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27906952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jpnadia/pseuds/jpnadia
Summary: In post-Cytherea Canaan House, Camilla Hect must overcome her grief, piece together the shards of her necromancer’s skull, and find transportation to a more hospitable planet, aided only by the likewise-grieving Crown Princess of Ida.On her way, she’ll encounter ancient artifacts*, medical emergencies**, and surprising wisdom†.Turns out, Coronabeth Tridentarius is more helpful than you’d think. (More helpful than Captain Deuteros, anyway.)_* sex pollen** sex pollen† while coping with sex pollen
Relationships: Camilla Hect/Coronabeth Tridentarius
Comments: 93
Kudos: 115





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maybem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybem/gifts).



> The rating's going to go up pretty promptly*, but I suppose this first chapter can be read alone for all the folks out there who want to be sad about the Sixth without the smut.
> 
> _  
> *See also: sex pollen.

Camilla Hect tallied her injuries. It was the sensible thing to do. She would be of no use to anyone until she’d tended to them. One of her hands was missing most of its skin. She had a hole in her shoulder from a bone spur, was dizzy with blood loss, and her collarbone ached where Cytherea had stepped on it. There was no point in trying to catalog the minor lacerations, abrasions, and contusions. There were too many of them and they, at least, would heal on their own. 

If she could keep everything from getting infected, she might even survive.

She definitely didn’t have enough antibac on her. A single half-empty tube was perfectly adequate for everyday purposes, but wouldn’t suffice now. If the Sixth quarters had survived Cytherea’s rampage, there would be more there. Grabbing onto a chunk of rubble with her less-injured hand, she hauled herself to her feet. 

Her body _hurt_. The adrenaline had worn off. It took too much effort to stand. 

If she was very, very lucky, she would be able to graft some of her own peeled-away skin back in place. Resigned to her fate, she forced her spine to straighten and limped toward the hunched black form. “Reverend Daughter?” 

The Reverend Daughter did not answer.

Camilla waited, but she did not ask again. She couldn't bear to interrupt Harrow’s grief, even though a necromancer could get the bone splinters out of her wound with a much lower probability of infection than doing it herself. The Warden had made sure she knew how to get them out manually, _just in case_. She could take care of herself.

She had to, because otherwise she might start to _think_. _Thinking_ about it might prove even less survivable than infection.

It became clear that Harrowhark Nonagesimus was caught in her own private world, insensate to reality, hunched over her dead cavalier. She was not going to answer her. Camilla was on her own.

Walking over to the Ninth had made her shoulder resume its sluggish bleeding. She found cover behind a blood-splattered pillar and leaned on it. The supplies she had on hand were hardly adequate, but she could prevent her wounds from getting worse. Probably. She did the best she could, tucked away the now-empty tube of ointment into her belt pouch, and, after a moment’s consideration, passed out.

* * *

Chunks of rubble littered the path back to the Sixth quarters. This proved useful: Camilla could rest leaning against them as she navigated the broken floor. She had no room for pride when she had to conserve what little strength she had left.

It nevertheless tempted her to push on when the Crown Princess of Ida emerged into the atrium, puffy-eyed and trailing Captain Deuteros. "Have they gone?" 

Since there would be no quick escape for her, Camilla asked rhetorically: "Where would anyone have gone?"

There were enormous holes in the wall, and Coronabeth pointed through one of them. "On that shuttle?"

Camilla swore and lurched to her feet. Stumbled. Caught herself. "I'm fine," she said automatically, though Coronabeth hadn't said anything. Her necromancer would have-- would have fussed over her, would have tended every physical wound she'd taken with the obsessiveness he'd always had when it came to broken bodies. Always thought he could fix anything with enough effort. Had almost been right about that.

"And I thought your House had a reputation for accuracy." Corona grabbed Camilla's arm and levered it over her shoulder without asking for permission. This did no favors for her collarbone. Regretfully, Camilla downgraded its status from "probably bruised" to "probably broken". At least she wasn’t losing any more blood.

And still, it was easier to make progress in a reasonable time frame. It had taken far too long, and with the Crown Princess's help, it took minutes instead of hours to get back outside, this time to the landing pad, where shuttles had once dropped them off. Camilla found she couldn't complain, even as pain lanced through her chest.

They were too late. The shuttle Coronabeth had spotted was already preparing for takeoff, the slumped unconscious form of the Reverend Daughter disappearing into the fat belly of the craft, draped over the arm of a thick, meaty body.

"Wait!" screamed Corona against the noise of the ramp retracting.

By a miracle, the ramp descended again, and a person with hair like forms that had been red maybe four thousand years ago emerged. She was clearly not the person who had carried Harrow away, and she was just as clearly annoyed. "What now?" she snapped, and: "Oh. Another _survivor._ "

Camilla didn't know what else she was supposed to be. The person came over to inspect them. "That looks painful," she observed in the understatement of all Camilla's twenty years of life. She waved a hand as if swatting a fly, and the flesh on Camilla's hand began to grow back. Bones knitted, swelling receded, and even the tiny capillaries that fed the bruises blooming all over Camilla sucked up the blood they’d spilled under her skin and became whole again. "Now, I'm busy."

Camilla couldn't find words. She flexed the new skin of her mended hand.

Corona, on the other hand, could. "You can't leave us here."

"I certainly can't take you with me," the Lyctor said. (It could only be a Lyctor. Camilla had fought one, and she will never again fail to recognize the breed.) Her pale hair moved wrong in the wind of the loading dock. "God has no use for a lone Second House necromancer and a pair of cavaliers who failed in their duty."

Judith gave a cry and lurched away. The Lyctor watched dispassionately as she went.

Camilla rocked up onto her toes. "You didn't round us up to leave us here."

The Lyctor scowled, like Camilla had just thrust half of a flayed lemon between her teeth. She leaned in close and said, barely audible, "God has no use for you. But someone else does. Wait for their shuttle.”

"When?" Camilla didn't bother to lower her voice.

The Lyctor shook her head and ascended the ramp into the shuttle that had already swallowed up Harrowhark and Ianthe.

"What did she say?" asked Coronabeth Tridentarius, from Cam's elbow. In the first display of sense she'd seen from the Crown Princess, the ninny had held her tongue during the short exchange.

"Not here." Camilla had already identified Judith Deuteros as dangerous, an enemy. “Come on. I’ll take you to the Sixth quarters.”

* * *

They stayed just long enough for Camilla to find what she needed while Coronabeth insulted their blackout curtains and the flimsy they’d tacked to the wall.

Camilla had no intention of taking any of it down. “Would you rather stay in the Third quarters?” she asked, pointedly. 

The Princess went pale. "No," she said, very quickly, as if the room she'd slept in their whole stay contained ghosts.

It didn't. The souls of both Ianthe Tridentarius and Naberius Tern had left along with the shuttle.

Maybe that made it worse. Camilla didn't have the energy to care. She had her own wayward soul to collect.

* * *

The room where Dulcinea had convalesced was now a scene of carnage. Blood splattered over the walls where bits of fat and meat had stuck to the fixtures or fallen to the floor. There was a horrible silhouette of pristine white in the bed, where someone might have lain before they pushed the sheets back to walk out of the nightmare.

Cam had no idea how he'd expected her to find anything in this gory nonsense of a corpse. He had always had too much faith in her. But she had gloves, and she had forceps, and she would do what she could. The alternative was worse.

"What are you doing?" It could have been curiosity or horror from the princess. It didn't change what Cam had to do.

"Looking for my necromancer's skull."

"Are you serious?"

Cam tweezed a shard of bone out of a quivering gobbet. She could sort bones later, after she'd defleshed the lot. Right now there were too many confounding variables. She didn't want to contaminate the scene any more than she had to. As if any scholar would ever study it, when the entire planet was off-limits and everyone here dead or dying. Viciously, she pulled another fragment free. "You don't have to stay."

"Don't make me go." It was quiet, and the more urgent for it. "Can I help?"

Cam wanted to say no. To pour everything she didn't want to feel into a sentence and wield the knife of her grief until Corona lay on the floor, bleeding out.

Which wasn't helpful. This room already had too many corpses-- or, taken from another point of view, too few. 

She pulled off one of her gloves to reveal a clean hand and dug the other pair out of her bag. Palamedes's. Long, thin gloves for the long, thin hands of a long, thin man. No one could ever call Corona thin, but she had the height, and her hands were strong and slim and strangely scarred for a putative necromancer. "Try them on."

Corona did. They didn't quite fit-- her necromancer's bony palms had been broader, and Corona's fingers were longer. But they covered her skin and cinched tight at the wrist, which would prevent cross-contamination. "Bone only," said Camilla, "No cartilaginous tissue or--"

"Please." Corona held up a hand. The excess polymer weave and antislip coating flapped with the gesture. "I trained as a necromancer of the Third. I can identify bone."

There was nothing to say to that, so Cam didn't. Corona crouched down on the opposite side of the room, and they worked in a silence punctuated with the occasional squelch and splat until the bag began to fill with the soiled shards of bones that had once been whole.

"I'm not finding anything else," said Corona. "You?"

There were fifteen kilos of matter in the collection bag, but some of that would be blood and meat and fluid they hadn't been able to scrape off. Nonagesimus could have found finer fragments, but Nonagesimus had become a Lyctor and left to serve the King Undying. Camilla was just a swordswoman. "No. We're done here."

"Merciful Emperor be praised." Coronabeth stripped off the gloves and flung them into the ruined bed. Cam retrieved them as Corona made a show out of stretching her fingers. "I want a _bath_."

"Leave at any time," said Camilla, who wasn't feeling hospitable.

Instead, Corona followed her through the hallways, half a step behind as if she were the cavalier and Camilla, the necromancer. Camilla wanted to scream.

* * *

"You smell like a charnel house." The bathroom door had opened. A cloud of steam emerged, preceding the Crown Princess, who had wrapped herself in a thin grey towel that would have actually covered anyone else. "Take a break. The bones will be there tomorrow." With that, she disappeared back behind the door, hopefully to put on something that clothed her.

Camilla finished sluicing down the batch of bones she was working on. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could turn her attention to finding a way off-planet. For what came next, she needed a necromancer who would cooperate. She did not trust Judith Deuteros.

But hadn't she told her necromancer time after time that he would work better if he slept? And the weariness was seeping into the joints of her fingers, making the tendons clumsy. He deserved better. "Fine."

First she hastily dumped her mess off the cavalier's cot and stole a pillow off her necromancer's bed. Still smelled like him. It would have to be enough, because a moment later Coronabeth reappeared and flung herself onto the mattress. "I don't suppose you have food around here?"

"There's nutrient bars--"

"I said _food_.... Never mind. It can wait until tomorrow." The Crown Princess of Ida drew up the gray covers of the Sixth around herself and mashed her face into the pillow, making herself at home in this room full of the Warden’s books and the Warden’s things, as comfortable as she was in whatever quarters had been assigned to the Third.

Camilla turned away and went to wash the last of her necromancer's blood out from under her fingernails. She didn't have the heart to make Coronabeth leave.


	2. Now

It’s a good thing that the Crown Princess of Ida makes a tolerable assistant, because they haven't been apart a day since it happened. She sat by Camilla’s side the entire time she sorted bits of bone picked clean of meat, passing the glue pot when asked, offering a constant stream of inane prattle and taking no offense when Camilla tuned her out. 

Days later, when Cam had finished-- when Cam wore the jigsaw assemblage of her dead necromancer’s skull in a pouch around her neck-- Coronabeth had offered to carry the balance of the remains to the incinerator. The matter left behind was just meat and the bits of empty bone, of no use to anyone. Camilla had refused the help, but Corona had walked at her side the whole way there and touched Camilla’s shoulder gently when her eyes stung in the smoke.

Now, the princess trails Camilla through the twice-ruined halls of Canaan house. In spite of Cam’s attempts to teach her proper investigatory procedure, Coronabeth gets in the way more often than she doesn’t, but she’s an effective helper when Cam wants to move heavy furniture or pry doors off their frames by main force.

All the skeleton servitors have dissolved into so many piles of dust, so there’s a great deal of _work_ to cope with on top of finding a way out. Coronabeth is learning to cook. Her efforts have improved: they now beat eating the raw ingredients off the pantry shelves by a slim margin. If they can’t get off-planet within the next month or so, they’ll need to learn how the skeletons fished, but they’re okay for now.

Their partnership is nothing more than a survival strategy and they both know it. Camilla could grit her teeth and slog through it on her own. Thinks about doing just that every time Corona contaminates a relic with modern thalergy traces. But this facility is fucked to hell as it is, and she's not going to pass up an advantage just because it annoys her a little. Not when her necromancer's soul hangs in the balance.

Today, they’re in the Fourth study. Cam doesn't have to worry about picking the lock because she still carries every key her necromancer had earned. She doesn’t expect to find anything here, but she’s taken their copy of the Ninth’s map and created a systematic plan to go through it, and this is next on the list. Anything could be a clue. Anything is better than sitting around _waiting_.

Unfortunately, the setting has piqued Coronabeth’s curiosity. She’s darting around the room from jewellery case to wardrobe and _poking_ everything.

"Don't touch that," says Camilla automatically.

Of course, Coronabeth ignores her and runs her hand over the exquisite moth-eaten embroidery on a tapestry depicting a stupendously endowed nude. A cloud of ten-thousand-year-old dust puffs out, coating her face and her hair. She chokes on it. Cam has to grab Corona's wrist to pull her free of the cloud. Her eyes go pink, her cheeks red, and when Cam pulls her away from the dust cloud to conduct a field examination, there's evidence of selective swelling.

Great. Cam has enough on her plate already. The last thing she needs is a touch-happy princess having an allergy attack.

“I feel a little dizzy,” says Coronabeth, swaying slightly on her feet.

Cam had hoped to make more progress today. There has to be some way off this desolate rock, or some way to jury-rig together some sort of communications device. There are libraries and materials here, and she is of the Sixth. She can figure it out. (The alternative isn't worth consideration. She can't fathom staying here alone for the rest of her life, with only the decoratively helpless Crown Princess of Ida and the ghosts for company. She has never been alone before. Never been without him.)

“You can’t rest here,” she says, resigned to her fate. “Help me get you back to somewhere safe.”

* * *

Turns out, it's a good thing she didn’t try to press on. Coronabeth’s legs get wobblier and wobblier as they approach the Third quarters. They might have made it to the tower where the Sixth had been staying, but Coronabeth is even heavier than she looks. Camilla doesn't want to exhaust her strength, just in case.

By now, Cam's been here a few times, when Corona wants fresh outfits or some creature comfort. She's almost used to the tarnished opulence, the wine-colored velvet drapes that hide most of the water damage, the gold fixtures in the bathroom, the palatial bed that could fit seven and swallows up the pillow-strewn cavalier's cot at the end. (There is only one necromancer's bed. Corona and Ianthe must have shared it. Cam doesn't dare ask, because every mention of Ianthe makes Corona's eyes well up, and then she's useless for hours. Cam could go out alone, could leave Corona alone in her grief. She doesn't, though, comforts her, waits it out every time. Coronabeth is not her necromancer-- as it turns out, she isn't a necromancer at all-- but Cam has been looking after someone for as long as she can usefully remember. It's a small comfort. It's allowed.)

She finishes rummaging through her bag, pulling out what she needs to test the allergen and what she needs to clear an airway if it gets bad. Their supplies are limited. With luck, it won't get that bad.

When she straightens up, tools in hand, Corona is standing there in her underwear, wisps of silk and ribbon dressing up some impressive structural engineering. It's unexpected, which is why she stares.

Corona unhooks her bra. Her generous breasts spill forth. Cam's mouth goes dry. "What are you doing?" she asks. This is not normal behavior, even for a woman who thinks nothing of investigating dead bodies in a skimpy nightie.

"It's hot in here." Coronabeth steps out of her delicate panties. " _You're_ hot, Camilla Hect."

The Crown Princess of Ida stands very very naked in front of Cam. There is-- really quite a lot of thigh. Cam does not trust herself to even think about the breasts. She backpedals as gracefully as she can manage, seeking space to maneuver, space to _think_. "I should give you some privacy."

"You should come to bed with me."

Cam snorts, trying to think of a more unlikely offer. "Try again."

Corona seems to be done talking. She approaches. It gives Cam a front-row seat to observe the sweat sheened over that expanse of golden skin, beading in the hollows of her throat and--

Cam is beginning to get a very bad feeling about that cloud of dust. She arrests Corona's forward momentum with a palm slapped against Corona's forehead, which is hot and clammy.

That's bad. It's only been fifteen minutes, twenty tops, since Corona inhaled the dust. Whatever it is, it's working on her system fast with palpable physical side effects.

"Go to bed," Cam says, deciding that it frankly doesn't _matter_ what the readings say. Whatever nonsense the unknown chemical has wrought, Coronabeth needs rest. Camilla can take her temperature just as easily if she's sleeping.

Alarmingly, Corona purrs in response. "Exactly," she says, and takes up Cam's wrist. With her free hand, Cam snatches up her satchel by its handle-- its contents are going to be patently inadequate, she can already tell-- and allows Corona to pull her into the bedroom.

* * *

It is a mistake. The minute the door shuts behind them, Coronabeth grabs onto her with both hands and falls backwards onto the bed. Camilla finds herself sprawled out on top of Corona's chest.

Her House is grey, the ocean is wet, and Coronabeth Tridentarius has fabulous tits. It's a fact of life, the kind she shouldn't even need to think about. Turns out having the physical reality jammed up against her chest is quite a bit different from the abstract knowledge. She’s been plunged into the sea with waves breaking over her head. She can't quite remember how to breathe.

It wouldn't be hard to break Coronabeth's hold on her. Unfortunately, doing that would also break two of Coronabeth's fingers, so Cam hesitates. Corona has been a thoroughly adequate helper, exceeding Camilla's admittedly low expectations. She doesn't want to hurt her.

While Camilla's looking for a different escape route, Corona leans up and kisses her. She should have seen this coming, but she was-- distracted. All the air leaves her lungs in a sharp puff.

Corona's lips are soft and warm, and her arms are frankly a menace. The Princess's hands meander down to Cam's thighs and knead the muscles there. 

For a long moment, Camilla forgets why she wanted to break away. This is nothing like sparring in Swordsman's Spire, but it's the same kind of comfort: the closeness of bodies, the physical exertion. Their legs tangle together, and Cam feels blazing warmth lodge against her the line of her quad. 

Corona slips her tongue into Camilla's mouth. It's enough of a surprise to break Cam out of the haze of sensation. "Wait. No."

"I don't want to wait." Deprived of Cam's mouth, Corona brushes the words against the skin of Cam's forehead. "I want you now."

Belatedly, Cam realizes that she's free now. It's not hard for her to scramble backward and out of Corona's grasp. "No," she says, steadier this time. "Not until we figure out what's wrong with you. You're having an allergic reaction."

"Don't be silly. There's nothing wrong with me." There's a high flush on her cheeks.

Cam darts out of range of the arms. Apparently, Corona isn't entirely lucid, either. She needs care. This, at least, is familiar; the Warden was always a handful when he was sick, too. "There's nothing wrong with you," Cam says, soothingly. "I just need to take some readings. Will you get back on the bed?"

Agreeably, Corona goes to the bed and splays her limbs out at right angles. It's an eyeful, but Camilla is a professional. She's studied anatomy, could quickly and correctly label a diagram depicting every component of Coronabeth's anatomy currently glistening pink between her thighs. _Has_ labeled such a diagram, during testing back on the Sixth, without a trace of arousal. Any... _thoughts_ she's having must stem from either simple neglect of her own needs or cross-contamination.

Well, she can take care of the former on her own time and mitigate the latter with proper procedure, even if Coronabeth continues to actively subvert her efforts.

Not wanting to test her luck, she jabs the bulb of the thermometer under Corona's tongue and prays the princess cooperates long enough to get a good reading. There's no point in trying to take samples. She has the dust from the tapestry in a vial and everything else is contaminated, unless she wants to try to draw Corona's blood. Not a good idea, because Camilla doesn't know how to make the other woman stay still.

It's a starting point, at least. Better than nothing. Cam's worked with less.

When Corona starts to shift restlessly, Cam takes the thermometer back and puts distance between them before she reads it. She doesn't have a proper baseline, but Corona’s temperature is definitely elevated with respect to the normal human range.

"Join me?" Corona holds her arms wide, and, to her shame, Cam is tempted. 

Instead, she stalls. "Give me one minute." She slips out of the bedroom into the parlour and shuts the door behind her. Jams the handle. Slides down the wall to the floor.

Her forehead thumps down on her knees. She wraps her arms around her shins and lets herself rock.

Camilla doesn't know how to physically cope with someone uncooperative, someone who she doesn't want to hurt. She’s had lots of practice coaxing her necromancer into taking care of himself, but she'd always sparred verbally with him. The Warden had never _grabbed_ her to make a point. And it's not that she lacks the muscular capability or the training: she spent hours at Swordsman's Spire honing her skill, but a duel there always ended with the arbitrator’s call, and it was always rude to injure your opponent.

* * *

Eventually, the doorknob rattles. Cam has a breathless moment of worry-- that Coronabeth will get out and she won’t be able to stop either of them from doing something they’ll surely regret in the morning. But the door holds, and eventually Corona calls through it. “Sixth?”

“Get some rest,” says Cam, searching for a phrasing that will satisfy Coronabeth, who doesn’t seem interested in taking ‘no’ for an answer. She can’t bring herself to lie, no matter how much easier it would be. “I’ll be back in the morning to check on you.”

That doesn’t promise anything that Cam isn’t already planning on doing. “I want you _now_ ,” says Corona, sulkily, but Cam can hear her footsteps recede. That’s good, because it means she’s at least _partly_ lucid. Maybe she’ll sleep it off, and maybe she’ll be back to normal tomorrow.

Can’t count on that, though. Cam is going to need a plan of attack. Supplies, probably, because she doesn’t want to leave Coronabeth alone for longer than absolutely necessary. That can be tomorrow’s task. Tonight, she wants to get some tests going on the sample of dust, record at Corona’s temperature in her logbook. She doesn’t have the Warden’s memory and needs the visual aid.

* * *

Cam settles on the plush sofa in the sitting room of the Third quarters. It’s strewn with overstuffed throw pillows, silky throws draped over the back. The result is softer than her cavalier’s cot or the shuck back on the Sixth. She’s exhausted. It should be easy to get to sleep.

Except the entire couch is trying to suffocate her. She chucks the pillows onto the floor and flips onto her back. The curtains have been pulled back to let in the starlight, and the ornate plaster cornices on the ceiling cast strange shadows on the harsh cracks running through them. It makes them into hungry mouths, ready to consume this entire shitty castle. This strange place with this strange couch has wormed its jagged fingernails into her brain, scraping her eyelids open. The memory of his eyes, grey as moonlight on carved plaster, haunts her.

It’s not their tower with its blackout curtains. She can’t hear the soft rustle of flimsy or her necromancer’s even breathing as he studies-- the commonest, most beloved lullaby she’d ever had. She hates it. She hates everything.

It's not productive to dwell on that, when she can't reasonably change any of it. She can only go forward. She forces her mind to tomorrow's agenda.

In spite of her truly inadequate field equipment, she did make progress in identifying the subject that Corona reacted to. The dust contained some kind of organic molecule. If Camilla had to gamble, she’d guess it’s psychoactive. She’d rather get a confirmation, a conclusive result. Still, if Corona asks for sex again, she has a solid reason to say no. The Crown Princess is stoned out of her mind on substances yet to be identified. There's no way she can meaningfully consent.

The problem is that Cam doesn’t _want_ to say no. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d used physical activity to block out unwanted emotion. Not even the first time she’d used _sex_ for that reason. If circumstances were otherwise, it could be relief, respite, a whetting stone to hone the edge of her own endocrine system so that she can become a better and more useful tool.

Even considering accepting the offer is beneath her. She rolls over on the cushions and closes her eyes. Whatever trouble tomorrow will bring, she’ll face it better if she’s rested.

She rolls off the couch and goes to the window. Yanks the curtains closed. It makes the room slightly more tolerable.

There's so little she can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per canon, Ulysses incited sexy parties. It’s never mentioned _how_ exactly he accomplished that.


	3. Day One

The fever does _not_ break overnight. When Cam opens the door, she finds Coronabeth Tridentarius dozing, sprawling out over her sheets. Sweat glistens on her brow and soaks her sheets.

Camilla crosses the floor on sure and silent feet to unpack her gear onto the coffee table, hoping to let her counterpart sleep undisturbed. If the unconsciousness persists, Cam knows how to administer an IV, assuming she can scrounge supplies. Barring that, there's a 95% chance rest will be better than anything else Camilla can offer. Probability is in her favor.

Luck, on the other hand, is not. Coronabeth stirs on the bed, stretching languorously in a motion that for some reason involves gratuitous hip-rolling. Cam tries not to look and fails miserably.

She steels herself and takes a thermometer and a canteen of water from her bag. As she approaches the bed, Cam reminds herself that Corona needs medical assistance, not the kind of attention Cam might give to the centerfold magazine spread, were Cam in the habit of indulging in such things.

Of course, she's _seen_ centerfolds. Unfortunately, there are good reasons why they come to mind now. Corona has rolled onto her front and pushed up onto her elbows, cupping her chin in her hands and incidentally pushing her breasts to spill gloriously over her forearms. She has bent one leg so that the golden sweep of her calf catches the light.

"I need to check your temperature." The verbal reminder should keep Cam focused on her job, not the jubilant arch of Coronabeth's back.

Corona ignores this. "You came _back_." She sounds inappropriately delighted. Her eyes are glassy and slow to focus.

Cam knows she has absolutely no bedside manner, and she has no intention of developing any now. "Mouth open."

Coronabeth opens her mouth, which is heartening, and raises her eyebrows suggestively, which isn't. Camilla inserts the thermometer under her tongue.

This time, Corona sits quietly until Cam extracts the thermometer to read the display. As expected, her temperature is still elevated, but not to levels where Cam will need to take action. It can't be comfortable, but Corona will survive. Cam makes a note in her book, and then a warm heavy damp weight descends on her shoulders. "Anything good?"

Cam snaps the book shut and ducks out from under Corona's arms. "I brought breakfast." She'd had to cobble it together out of what they had in their pack. Fruit, crackers, well-salted cheese. Water, from the tap, because at least that system seems to maintain itself.

Corona leans in and licks over the shell of Camilla's ear. Camilla jerks back, thrusting the canteen of water between them in self-defense.

To Cam’s surprise, Corona takes the canteen without protest. She unscrews the cap and tips her head back to drink. It exposes the long column of her throat. Cam catches herself staring, and forces herself to busy her hands laying out food-- pre-cut, in hopes of tempting the Crown Princess to consume nutrition. It had worked with Palamedes, before, and the familiarity of the task had soothed Camilla before she'd had to approach Corona's door. ("Stalling" is an ugly word. Camilla doesn't even think it.)

She glances up and Corona is still drinking, but she's letting the water spill artistically out of the sides of her mouth so cold sparkling droplets bead over her breasts and run down her belly.

It probably feels good on her fever-flushed skin, Camilla tells herself, and is definitely not anything at all out of the erotic poetry they have the Nirieds memorize.

"Where are the clean sheets?" she asks, rather than interrogate that line of thought.

Corona puts down the canteen and gives her a blank look. She traces the path of a water droplet down her centerline. When her hand snakes down between her thighs, Camilla gives up. There’s a difference between stalwartly resisting temptation and leaving yourself in the line of fire when there’s perfectly good cover available. She goes off to find the clean sheets herself.

* * *

Technically, Camilla doesn’t _have_ to go back. She steps around chalky piles of disintegrated oss in the laundry and systematically explores the cabinets and doors until she finds a closet full of fresh linens. Maybe Coronabeth would prefer to ride out her chemical-induced high in privacy. Any aggressively naked Idan would be a lot for a trained professional to handle, and anyway Camilla doesn’t have that kind of relationship with her.

She could drop off the supply of food in her pack, unlock the door, and resume her search for a way off-planet until the drug runs its course. She could let Coronabeth clean up her own damn mess. She could pray it doesn’t kill the only ally she has on this crumbling planet.

In the end, there’s really only one real choice Camilla can make. She has to live with herself for the rest of her life, and she won’t be able to do that if she abandons Coronabeth. She can handle this. It’s not like she’s never seen tits before.

She winnows out the sheets that obviously won’t fit on Coronabeth’s extravagantly large bed and piles everything else into a scavenged hamper to haul back to the Third’s quarters. 

* * *

When Camilla gets back to the room after her supply run, she can hear faint rustling in the bedroom, and she relaxes. It's an uncomfortable thing, to leave an ally helpless and locked away, but she's gotten away with it. Now she has enough food for a few days, several sets of fresh sheets, better equipment from her own rooms, and a few other sundries that she hopes she won't need.

She opens the door and the smell knocks her back. Objectively, it’s terrible-- stale sweat and fluids, with the rotten sweetness of bruised, oxidizing apples laying saccharine over top. The Crown Princess of Ida needs a goddamn bath.

Unfortunately, in spite of her best efforts, Camilla Hect is a subjective creature. There’s a strong thread of _aroused woman_ in the center of the worst, most overpowering perfume ever. It suffuses Camilla’s nostrils, bypasses her brain, and starts a chain reaction in her nervous system, starting with her cunt and radiating out from there.

Even more unfortunately, Cam has a job to do. She takes a deep breath-- mistake; the scent makes her knees feel wobbly-- and shuts the door behind her. Only then does she allow herself to look, which is necessary, but fraught.

Corona has both hands wrapped around the knob of her headboard. She's using the leverage to writhe on the mattress, legs spread, in what is by a large margin the lewdest display Camilla has seen outside of the outputs of the Sixth house pornography presses. It can't possibly be doing anything for the Third, her hips canting up into thin air with nothing between her bountiful thighs.

Cam approaches gingerly, wary of a grab. "Corona?" she asks, just before she enters the range of those long arms.

Coronabeth's eyes snap open. She lets go of the headboard. "Hello again," she says, in a tone that suggests this is less a greeting and more a proposition.

Cam takes three hasty steps back. "I brought clean sheets." She thrusts them out in front of her. They're a poor substitute for her knives-- but Coronabeth isn't up for that kind of duel, anyway.

"We'd only mess them up again anyway."

Which is a lot to hear. Camilla pushes the ensuing mental images out of her treacherous brain. "Are you still feverish?"

"I feel amazing."

That's probably a yes, then, though Cam can't rule out exertion as the cause of the sweat beading on Corona's temple. She sets aside her bundle of fabric. "Can I take your temperature?"

"I suppose."

Corona is pouting again, but she still doesn't make a grab. Camilla gets the thermometer into Corona’s mouth with minimal stray touching, gets a clean reading. That’s where her luck runs out. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” asks Corona.

"It's not dangerously high yet, but I'd like to bring your temperature down a little. Stay there." She ducks into the bathroom and starts running the water-- lukewarm, because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to convince Corona to get into anything colder. It will still help.

It takes three tries to get the princess out of the bed.

Once she’s up, Corona sways on her feet. Under her breath, Camilla hisses a string of curse words in a dead language she’d learned studying next to her necromancer. “Lean on me,” she instructs, and insinuates herself under Corona’s armpit. She tells herself that the body odor isn’t any worse than the funk that pervades the showers at Swordsman’s Spire and maneuvers them through the door to the bathroom, wishing that the princess would stop sagging against her. It's a lot of dead weight.

“Camilla, I’m being so good,” mumbles Corona as Camilla helps her into the water. Her face is mashed into the top of Cam’s head. “Will you stay with me?”

The bath is nearly full. Camilla shuts off the tap. “You’re so tired,” she murmurs, brushing a sweaty lock of amber hair off Corona’s forehead. “If I stay, will you sleep?”

"I'll try," says Corona, which, fair enough. Cam has had bad nights since they've been stranded here, too.

"I have to go change your sheets. Try to get some rest. I'll be right back."

Corona hums, and Cam takes it as agreement.

* * *

It can't have taken more than fifteen minutes to change the sheets, even though Cam took two extra minutes to unbolt the cavalier’s cot from Corona’s bed to drag it out into the parlour. She needs her own sleep, whether or not she can get Corona to rest. (The laundry situation when they get out of this will be grim. That's not a productive train of thought, though, so Cam shoves the soiled sheets into the hamper and tells herself very firmly that they're gross, which means that they definitely don't smell _good_ , too.) She retrieves a book and steels herself for a couple of uncomfortable hours making sure the Crown Princess of Ida doesn't accidentally drown while she's napping.

In the bathtub, Corona is not sleeping. She's found soap, and is running her hands over her own body, distributing thick lather over her curves. It's a good sign that she's independently carrying out hygiene tasks, Cam thinks, and then looks a little bit closer at what Corona's actually doing.

Her soapy hands glide over the overflowing handfuls of breast she's scooped up. They're tipped with candy-pink nipples, and Camilla wonders how that color even occurs in nature. She could dust icing sugar over those tits and come up with a dessert more decadent than anything the Fifth could possibly serve. It's a spectacularly inefficient way to clean her body.

Corona catches her staring. Cam knows because the princess manufactures a throaty, theatrical moan and catches up one of those nipples between thumb and forefinger. Pinches until it comes to a point. The water sloshes against the walls of the tub, suggesting another lascivious hip roll.

Camilla's mouth grows dry. She fists her hands at her side, suddenly and intensely glad that the bubbles cover up that blonde triangle of hair and any other violently pink parts of Corona's anatomy.

"You're not sleeping." As arguments go, it's toothless. She's banking on the outside chance Coronabeth will cooperate for once. Her odds are terrible.

As expected, Corona doesn't back down. "You left," she says. "I had to do something." One of her hands twines its way down under the water. Ripples spread out around her wrist, but the bubbles cover up the specifics of how she's touching herself.

That she _is_ touching herself is unmistakable. Cam can see her stomach work in rhythm with the ripple, can imagine how her fingers alternate between toying with her folds and her clit-- probably not penetration in the bath. If Cam's honest, not being able to see affects her more, because it engages her brain.

She holds up her book like a shield. "Well, I'm here now. Sleep away-- I'm going to read." To prove it, she slides down the wall and sits cross-legged on the cold tile floor and opens the book.

The pages might as well be blank for all that Camilla can focus. Little noises of water lapping against ceramic intersperse with Corona's breathy moans. Unable to help herself, Cam tilts her pelvis forward so that she can press her heel against her own mounting, throbbing need.

As Corona comes, Camilla does not take her eyes from the page. What should be black text on white background has blurred into a grey blob, utterly meaningless. The splashing sounds fade away into silence.

Corona whispers into the quiet of the bathroom. "Camilla, I need more." She sounds both lucid and desperate, and it sets all of Camilla's neurons into a frenzied sympathetic response.

Cam shakes her head. She can't offer Corona what she wants, not until she gets the drugs out of her system. "Get some sleep."

At last, Corona gives in and slumps over the edge of the tub, pillowing her cheek on her bicep.

* * *

A scant three hours later, Corona wakes, complaining that the bath is cold.

"I need to take your temperature," says Cam, on autopilot. She massages feeling back into her legs and ignores the way Corona's eyes track her fingers.

"Again?" asks Corona.

"I need to know if the bath brought the fever down." But Corona looks better, seems more lucid. She doesn't fight when Cam slips the thermometer between her lips, and the reading bears out that conclusion. It's still an elevated temperature, but they're out of the danger zone. 

She gets Coronabeth out of the bath, helps to dry her off, and offers her a robe that the Crown Princess declines. It's better, but they're not in the clear yet.

Emboldened by her partial success, Cam asks, hopefully: "Will you come eat?"

"I'm not hungry." Coronabeth balks, but Camilla manages to coax her over to the table.

The food has been sitting out since the morning, but it’s all designed to keep. Cam weighs her options, and picks a piece of apple. It’s gone brown, but apples keep. She brings it to Corona's lips. "Please?"

It's not a huge surprise when Corona's tongue wraps around her fingers, licking them clean after she takes the apple. She's expecting the little moan, the _pop_ sound when Corona pulls back. It doesn't make her immune to any of those things. Her body responds in spite of her best intentions, her insides liquefying under the touch.

Guilt swamps her. "Is this okay?" she asks, meaning: will you forgive me when this is over?

Corona leans her head against Cam's shoulder, her curls tangling against the fabric of Cam's tunic. "Can I have a grape?"

Cam resigns herself to her fate. "You can have a grape," she says. 

It's the slowest meal they've had since coming to Canaan House, and Camilla has to delicately remove Corona's hands from her person three times: twice from her breast, and then once from the waistband of her trousers.

"Do you want me to wait?" asks Corona, after the third time. "I want you so much. If you want me to wait, I'll wait."

The words sizzle down Camilla's spine. Of course she knows what she's doing, but it's an opening, and it's getting at least _some_ food into her counterpart. "Wait for me." She slips another piece of apple into Corona's mouth. "I'll tell you when you can touch."

"Anything you want," says Corona.

They make it through another half an apple before Coronabeth starts squirming in a way that makes Cam worry about choking hazards.

"Still hungry?" Cam asks, just in case an appropriate appetite has materialized.

"Only for you.” Corona pushes the plate out of Cam’s reach. "Will you fuck me now?"

Camilla levels very, very cool eyes at her. “I can’t."

"Why not?" Corona wriggles on her chair so that her nose brushes just above the hollow of Cam's throat. "You want to." She nuzzles her way up the column of Cam's throat and then veers to the side to bite the underside of Cam's jaw where it connects under her ear.

"You’re drugged." Cam grabs the edge of the table so that it digs into her palms. It doesn't distract her from Corona's tongue on the side of her neck nearly enough. "You’re not in your right mind. You don't want this."

"Anyone would want you, Camilla Hect," says Corona, which is not, strictly speaking, actually true. Her teeth find Cam's earlobe.

Cam takes a slow, even, deep breath, and then she takes another. It's no surprise that Corona knows what she's doing. Her technique is effective. "No."

"Please?" Corona whispers. She doesn't have to be loud: the word brushes over Camilla's ear, along with her lips. Cam shivers. Belatedly, she realizes she can now push the other woman away without banging the top of her skull against the bottom of Cam's chin. She frees herself and stands.

"I'm locking you in for the night," says Cam, more brusque than she means to be. Her body thrums with the knowledge of how close the Crown Princess had been to having her right there in a chair, with a half-eaten plate of fruit rotting on the table beside them. "I'll be here if there's an emergency."

"Wait!"

But Cam is already in motion, and nothing can stop her once she starts moving. She escapes and jams the door behind her.

* * *

The cavalier’s cot she'd rescued is waiting for her in the parlour. The mattress is thin, but still more generous than Cam can comfortably tolerate. It smells a little like Tern's hair gel, even though Cam knows the sheets are fresh. The stuff should be classified as a biohazard and banned across the Nine Houses, Cam decides as she pushes the cot up into the corner, so that the crumbling plaster has her back. It's not the comfort of her metal husk back home on the Sixth, but it will do.

She doesn’t have to sleep on the sofa, which is the important part. If she pulls the grey blanket she'd brought from her own bed over her head, she can almost pretend she's not trapped in a crumbling ruin with an incapacitated ally.

The Warden would never have allowed her to make believe like that. "The truth," he would have reminded her, gently, and his reminder would have been better solace than any lie. 

Cold stabs through her. Jagged shards of ice pierce her to her core. The Warden is dead, and he cannot comfort her. He will never comfort her again unless she can get off this thrice-damned planet.

Camilla huddles in her blanket, chilled to her bones, the scent of a dead man's hair product thick in her nostrils. She'd barely thought of the Warden all day.

He wouldn't want her to be miserable. He would remind her that they're doing necessary work, tell her he's proud of her for surviving. It feels disloyal anyway.

She rolls over and counts her breaths to relegate the oppressive weight of guilt to the back of her brain. It lurks there like a bone ward: heavy, macabre, ready to grow skeleton arms and snatch her off balance if she stops paying attention.

Well, if it does, she'll fight it off, again and again, as many times as she needs to until she's completed the task he set her. For now, she'll sleep, and tomorrow, she'll re-engage in the messy, impossible business of living without him.

The thought makes her feel like she's on solid ground again. The world, while terrible and empty without him, is no longer threatening to tip off its axis. She lets go of consciousness and lets herself drop.

In spite of that, in spite of everything, she sees one last image behind her eyelids before she falls completely asleep. Coronabeth Tridentarius's luscious pink-tipped tits.


	4. Day Two

Fantasy isn’t practical on the Sixth, where-- if she ever goes back, which isn’t likely-- Camilla has a choice of four options. None of them are personally appealing, even if she hadn’t had inappropriate feelings elsewhere. As a result, she has a lot of practice of doing this clinically, thinking of nothing but the sensation of her own hands on her own body. Everything she has ever wanted to think about is forbidden, so instead she catalogues the details and responses of her own anatomy. It has always been soothing. A meditation rooted in her own body, a connection to muscles and tissues she’s honed for her whole life.

Today, on the second day of this catastrophe, it’s also a prophylactic.

Camilla can hear Coronabeth through the walls. It ruins the odds of today running any more smoothly than yesterday had. She squashes her ears between two pillows and tries not to listen. She could never think of _him_ \-- not of grey eyes nor of the angle of his jaw against her skin-- and thinking of _her_ is only slightly less disastrous. If she lets herself think of Corona’s slim palms and long fingers (oval-shaped fingernails, well-manicured, not as short as Cam keeps hers but not impractically long either), the way that Corona always lets the pads dig in just a little bit too hard--

This is not going well. Cam returns her attention to the rhythm of her breath and her hand. She’s seen too much over the past thirty-six hours. That’s the only reason it’s difficult to remain focused. Everything would be much simpler if she didn’t know the sweet slick pink of Coronabeth’s cunt, had never been forced to consider the precise timbre of the gasp Corona might make as Cam slides the first finger inside. The cutting smile Corona would aim at her, sharp as the Warden’s cheekbone, even as she trembles and begs for more.

No, no, Cam’s doing it again. The pillow covering her ear has slipped. She can hear the faint sounds of Coronabeth moaning in the other room-- too distinctive to pretend that they’re noises of pain-- and she’s _so close_. She tries to wrench her thoughts back to something appropriate. Anything would be safer than the phantom sensation of Corona's teeth in her shoulder, the taste of shared vicious pleasure in her mouth. She comes before she can stop herself, gold and violet crowding out the grey behind her closed eyelids.

There’s no undoing it now. The thoughts have been in her head, on her lips, written across her skin with fingertips no longer stained with ink. They belong to the indelible past. She cannot change them now.

She gets up, washes her hands, and goes to make breakfast.

* * *

Camilla opens the door with caution that turns out to be warranted, because Coronabeth is hiding against the wall and latches onto her the moment she takes a tentative step into the room. The bowl of oatmeal she'd been carrying shatters on the floor, and Corona's tongue finds her earlobe. _Shit,_ that feels good.

"You've been avoiding me." Corona has a hand on the inside of her knee, because she has arms like an _octopus._ Even through the wadded-up fabric of the necromancer's robe that's far too long for her, it makes Cam shiver.

"I brought you breakfast," Camilla protests. Even if it's currently congealing in a puddle on the floor.

It's not her fault that she shudders when Corona's tongue laves down the cord of muscle at the back of her neck. Off-balance, she steps in the oatmeal. Her boot slips, and Corona catches her so that she's bent backwards over those strong arms. (It's absolutely obvious in retrospect that this woman is not a necromancer.) She finds herself breathing hard, with Corona's teeth descending toward her throat.

Camilla has had enough. She engages her abs to lever herself upright and out of Corona's grasp. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Come to what?" Corona watches her with her gorgeous jewel-toned eyes half-lidded, like she can see through the layers of fabric Cam's wearing. Like she appreciates the view. 

It makes Cam's heart race. She's standing in the admittedly-temporary inner sanctum of the Crown Princess of Ida, the epicenter of Coronabeth's power even if she _is_ drugged to hell and back. They're surrounded by gilt and glamour honed into a blade called temptation, and for the first time in her life, Cam doesn’t know how to parry. If she doesn't get control of herself she's going to end up doing something they're probably both going to regret the next time Corona is sober.

"Hold still," she says. The rope at her belt is synthetic, so that it will hold a necromancer. Cam's practiced with it enough that it doesn't take much thought to back Corona onto the bed, force her wrists together, and loop and knot the rope around them. 

Coronabeth, to her credit, holds still. Cam knows from observations she made both before and after circumstances forced them to team up that Coronabeth has an inordinate degree of range of motion in her shoulders. It makes this both easier and more difficult.

As usual, Cam can feel the tension bleed out of her counterpart’s tendons as she weaves the rope around the forearms, binding them together. She has always saved this technique for the occasions it’s most necessary, because it’s so effective. She tracks the relaxation by degrees, waiting for the moment Corona goes limp and acquiescent.

It never comes.

"Oooh, Camilla Hect," says Corona, admiringly. "I'd heard _rumors_ about the Sixth House."

Cam double-checks the tension and ties off with a knot near Coronabeth’s elbows. "This is not a best practice and normally we would discuss this thoroughly beforehand," she says, because she needs to say it, "but I literally do not know how else to keep you from hurting yourself and others." 

Corona isn't listening, even a little bit. Even though she's holding her wrists still-- thank the Prince Undying for small miracles-- she's busy wiggling so that her arms frame her breasts. Bountiful handfuls spill over the crooks of her elbows. Cam tries not to look, even as Coronabeth leans shamelessly up against her. "Mmmmmm. What now?"

There's hair in Corona's face, and Cam brushes it away. "We see if your fever's gone down, and then we go from there." She leads Corona over to the bed and sits her down on the edge. The sheets are damp with sweat, but there’s a half-empty glass of water on the bedside table. Experimentally, Cam pinches Corona’s upper arm, and the skin floods with color as soon as she lets go. Cutting Corona’s complaints off with the thermometer, she tunnels her hands through her hair. She still has too many things to worry about, but at least she can cross _dehydration_ off the list. 

As expected, the fever is just as bad as it had been the previous morning, but it’s not as bad as yesterday's afternoon spike. Maybe they’re through the worst of it. Cam can hope.

She checks Corona’s eyes. They’re clear enough for now. She bends so she can meet them. “Can I draw some blood?”

“I’m of the Third,” Corona points out. “Usually, we don’t ask.”

 _We_ means _Ianthe_. The unspoken name clogs the air in the room, like the woman who had abandoned Coronabeth when she became a Lyctor had also left behind a construct to bind platelets to any available oxygen to suffocate anyone who dares even mention her, however obliquely. Cam shoves it all aside. “On the Sixth, we ask.” Usually there’s paperwork to go with it, but this is field medicine. They’ll make do. “So. Blood?”

“Go ahead.”

She has to work carefully around Coronabeth’s ample chest, but she manages to get the blood. Four vials, which should be enough to isolate, identify, and study the substance that’s causing Corona’s symptoms. Tucking the vials away in her pocket, Cam turns to clean up the spilled oatmeal. It’s a shame that she couldn’t get her to eat, but now Cam knows Corona will drink fluids independently, and hand-feeding worked at least once. She’s cautiously optimistic that they'll get through this without lasting damage, especially since Corona has some fat reserves. Her necromancer had never had that luxury.

“Where are you going?” Corona sounds petulant, the kind that’s next to panicked.

“Not far.” For one thing, it wouldn’t be safe to leave earshot with Corona tied up. She could probably get free if she really wanted to-- that’s why Cam tied her hands in front of her, just in case-- but she’s had to bend procedure too much already.

“Stay?” There’s a pause, and then Corona adds: “Please?”

It’s the _please_ that sways Cam. “I need to get my equipment.”

“But then you’ll stay?”

“But I’ll come back, and if you behave, I’ll stay.”

* * *

Cam’s finally making actual progress with the sample when Corona’s patience wears out. “Camilla, I’m _bored_.”

“This is why you don’t touch ancient tapestries of dubious provenance.” Cam unclips the slide from the microscope. She actually has an idea of the molecular structure of the culprit, and if she had access to unlimited budget and the appropriate resources she thinks that she and the Warden could put together a countermeasure in as few as three weeks.

Except she’s trapped in a crumbling castle with only what supplies she can scrape together from leavings ten thousand years old, and the Warden is dead.

On the bright side, Coronabeth seems to be metabolizing it. It’s not a stable molecule. They just have to wait out the effects, however long it takes. She makes a note in her journal and balances her chair on its back legs.

“Are you almost done with that?” asks Corona. “I can’t even see what you’re doing. Cam, you’ve got to talk to me, I’m dying over here.”

“You’re not dying,” says Cam. “None of this is lethal.” The more she learns, the more confident she is of that.

“Caaaaaaaaaam...”

Cam makes the mistake of looking over. Corona is posing on the bed, hips up in the air, balanced on her shoulder blades with her back arched. A textbook example of lavish curves. Anyone would react. 

“I have to go,” she says abruptly.

* * *

Once Cam’s safely out of the bedroom with the door jammed and barricaded behind her, there’s work to do. She still wants to try to get food into Corona, those sheets need changing again, and the fever might spike again, depending on what rhythms the drug is operating on. (It isn’t _likely_ to spike that high again, based on the blood samples. Ballparking it, Cam gives another spike a 30% chance of occurring. But that’s still probable enough to deserve dedicated preparation.)

She’s pacing. There’s no one here to notice her vulnerability, though, and she needs to _think_. Or maybe she needs _not_ to think, because her brain is full of at least six feet of naked princess, and it keeps suggesting scenarios that are going to get Cam in trouble if she dwells on them.

Food. That’s safe enough to think about, because they don’t have access to anything that’s feasibly lickable off of Corona’s vast expanses of smooth, creamy skin. She needs to keep their bodies running. They can deal with everything else later.

* * *

Cam braces for a fight. She has a whole arsenal of tools, well-honed with long practice. She carries the drink like a weapon. It's full of nutrient paste, protein, fluids-- everything that a body needs to run in a form factor that's easy to absorb.

She walks into the room and Coronabeth is there-- well, she's tied up and locked in, there's nowhere else she could go. Cam would be more worried if the Crown Princess had gotten loose somehow. Roaming the musty hallways. Possibly accosting Judith Deuteros, though Camilla hasn't seen the Captain since that first day. It's a mental image Cam can't afford right now, anyway, because there's the Crown Princess of Ida, naked and spread-eagled on the opulent bed in the Third quarters, and Cam has a job to do.

Cam congratulates herself that, after taking the time to clear her head, she's entirely unaffected. Mostly entirely unaffected, she corrects herself, at the tug low in her belly. It's a natural reaction to an attractive naked woman.

"Drink this," she says, bracing her knees on the mattress so that the drink won't spill if Corona shoves her away.

"Okay," says Corona.

"I'll pour it down your throat if I have to.”

"I said I'll drink it!" Corona pulls at the rope around her wrists. "What's wrong with you? Give me a hand free so I can hold the cup.”

Carefully, Cam sets the drink aside and unlaces the rope. It’s been a few hours, anyway, so it’s good to give Corona a break to stretch her arms.

Corona levers herself up on one elbow and takes a sip. "This is disgusting," she says. "Next time, bring me something that doesn't taste like twice-warmed ass." But she must really be hungry, because she tips up the cup and downs the contents in several long gulps. 

Cam forbears comment on the difficulty she’d had getting food into her yesterday. Instead, she finds herself watching the long line of Coronabeth's throat as the princess swallows. She has a persistent new awareness of her unlikely bedfellow, and she prays it dissipates when Corona sobers up and puts on _clothing_ , because otherwise, she'll embarrass herself with this unwanted attraction.

"Better," says Coronabeth, setting the cup aside. "For now."

Which is when Cam realizes that Corona has managed to wrap a long arm around her waist and is pulling her in. Camilla falls and Corona kisses her, closed-mouthed and almost chaste except for the full body-press of grey robes against fever-hot skin. She knows Corona’s scent, now, and her eyes close without conscious intervention from her brain. Somehow, Corona has managed to slick her lips with some kind of sweet gloss, and Cam can taste that mingled with the lingering grey flavor of the nutrition drink. Distantly, she can hear herself moan, resonating in her chest and mingling with Corona’s bright laughter.

“Camilla Hect,” says Corona, kissing along the line of Cam’s jaw. “You taste even better than I imagined.”

Cam’s hips jerk at the sound of her name on Coronabeth’s lips. She sucks in one desperate breath, and then another. “No,” she says, and wiggles free again. Corona lets her go, and she crosses the room to stand by the door. “Corona, as much as I want you, we _can’t_.” She holds onto the doorknob, ready to flee if Corona pursues her.

Corona doesn’t move from the bed. Only her eyes follow Cam, but they’re nearly as tangible as her hands and mouth and body had been. “But you do want me.”

 _Fuck_. Cam had _not_ meant to let that slip. “We’re not talking about this until you’re sober.”

Time slows to a drip, like a broken faucet that lets a drop of water _ping_ against the metal basin when she’s nearly asleep. “I’ll wait,” says Corona, licking her lips. “We’ll talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies for the dodgy biochemistry. 
> 
> (Dammit, Jim, I'm a-- wait a minute--)


	5. Day Three

Today is going to be better. Cam has supplies, a plan of attack. She spent a whole evening preparing for this, and she's going to keep hold of her professionalism today. She's going to take care of her ally, and the two guilty orgasms she'd had while thinking of all the things she would really like to do to Coronabeth's willing body are-- she's just not going to think of them. 

Her certainty wavers immediately when she finds Coronabeth on the bed, starfished out with one knee drawn up to her chest. Her cunt is red and swollen and chafed. 

"What did you _do_ to yourself?" She wants to reach out and touch, to soothe the chafed red flesh. The tang of desire tugs at her molars in their sockets and makes her jaw ache with holding them back. Corona won't close her legs, and Cam can't look away. 

"You wouldn't touch me. So I touched myself." She holds Camilla's eyes, unembarrassed. "It's been days. Nothing works, no matter how many times I come."

That's knowledge that will keep Camilla up at night, turning it over in her brain to learn its contours by heart. But there's no time for that now, even if it weren't laced with danger. She has a plan, and she clings to it.

"Give me your wrists," she says, instead of anything else. 

Corona gets off the bed-- winces as she walks, and Cam ruthlessly suppresses the guilt-- and gives Cam her wrists. 

For now, she ties them behind Corona's back. "There will be no grabbing today." She has no idea if Corona will voluntarily comply with that, and no intention of leaving it up to chance. 

"I promise I won't grab you." The tone suggests that Corona can find any number of alternative methods to entertain herself, which is not the most comforting thought Cam has ever had in her life.

"You're going to behave." Camilla forestalls any argument by applying the thermometer to Corona’s mouth. It’s her _arms_ that are the most dangerous-- long and grasping. Now that they’re restrained behind Corona’s back it’s not too hard to bully the princess into compliance. Or maybe the worst of the compulsion is over-- her temperature isn’t quite normal yet, but it’s lower than it’s been since the day with the tapestry. Cam doesn’t know, and frankly, she’s too exhausted to care.

She spins Corona around. Her breasts look fantastic with her arms tied behind her back, which makes Cam wonder if there's any way to tie this woman up _without_ accentuating her chest.

"I behaved yesterday," says Corona, and then, "Sometimes."

Cam laughs before she can stop herself. "You smell terrible," she says, in lieu of riposte. "Let's get you into the sonic."

"I liked the bath better," Corona says as Cam marches her into the bathroom. "The sonic isn't nearly as nice."

"Tough," says Cam unsympathetically, pushing Corona into the cubicle and shutting the door in Corona’s face. She has a narrow window of time to get clean sheets onto the bed, and she’s going to take advantage of it.

* * *

Corona is still complaining about the sonic when Cam gets back to fetch her out.

Cam cuts her off. "Where’s your brush? Your hair is a mess."

"With lines like that you’ll win over all the girls," Corona says, angling her chin at one of the nightstands.

"I don’t need to win over anyone." Camilla retrieves the brush from the nightstand and steers Corona into a chair. This is as much for her as it is for Corona: she wants to make up for having fled the previous evening. Her selfish decision had allowed the princess to rub her own flesh raw.

Corona’s hair is a complete disaster. Cam has to go slow, teasing the tangles apart. More than once, she thinks longingly of her knives, but Corona doesn’t need to lose her hair in addition to what she’s already been through.

What’s worse: every time Cam’s fingers brush over the nape of Corona’s neck, Corona shivers. It’s a whole-body thing that sets all the fat on her body jiggling with inappropriate pleasure. Cam grits her teeth and picks out a knot.

"Do you have to?" Corona asks when Cam pulls the hair back away from her face and begins to braid. "I like it down."

"I’m not unfucking it for you again," Cam tells her. "Do what you like on your own time." She ties it off with a bit of string and wonders if she’s made a mistake. Corona looks a lot smaller and more vulnerable with the hair contained.

After that, there’s not a lot more Cam can do to stall. She reties Corona’s hands in front of her so that she’ll stay both comfortable and _still_. "Don’t move," she says, wrapping the loose end of the rope around the bedposts.

"Where would I go?" asks Corona, tugging on the rope pointedly. Cam watches to see if she needs to tie Corona’s legs down, too-- she’d rather not if she can avoid it-- but then the princess subsides into stillness. Not relaxed. Waiting.

There’s no better solution, not that Cam can find. "I’ll be right back," she says, and darts out into the parlour to rummage in her bag for the salve. It’s not perfect for the application, but it’s safe enough and ought to provide at least some relief. Keeping Corona from touching herself and allowing her time to heal should do the rest. At least Cam caught it before she broke the skin.

When she gets back, it’s worryingly easy to get Corona to spread her legs. On closer inspection, the chafing is worse than Cam had thought. It makes her wince just to look at it. "That has to hurt," she murmurs, mostly to herself, as she puts the gloves on. 

Corona doesn’t respond, except to moan when Cam begins to spread the salve over the affected area. Which is-- not at all a sound that Cam is going to hear every night in her dreams from now on. Cam hopes.

She's a professional. She can stay totally impassive while she touches Corona-- it's medical, not intimate. She's not squeezing her thighs together under the thick fabric of her tunic-- or if she is, it's just a physical reaction. Bodies do all kinds of things, even when you don't want them to.

Maybe if she lies often enough, it will become true.

That almost works, until Corona starts begging. " _Please,_ Cam, you could just breathe on me and I'd come."

After that, the lies are no solace.

It's not that Cam isn't tempted. It's that she's very good at doing what she's supposed to do, even when her fingers ache with desire, poised half a millimeter away from where they could really make a difference. 

She holds her breath and keeps her touch clinical and precise, even when Corona's hips work under her hands. Corona's arousal clings to her finger in a long, slick string that she has to break when she's finally done. Her hands are shaking.

"Cam--" says Coronabeth, in a shaking, strangled voice that lodges in the middle of the biggest tear in Camilla’s tattered self-control and _rends_.

"Shhhhh." She draws the covers up over Corona's body and smooths an escaped tendril of hair out of her face. Lets her hands loose from the bedpost, but keeps them bound, because she can’t trust herself if Corona reaches for her again. The important thing is that the fever has gone down. Corona is on the mend. Soon, they’ll be out of the situation. Sooner, probably, if Cam can keep Corona hydrated and _resting_.

And, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles-- Corona presses her cheek into the fresh pillowcase and falls asleep. 

* * *

Cam can’t quite manage to get real work done, but she curls in a chair and reads a book, monitoring Corona out of the corner of her eye. Corona gets a solid four hours of real sleep before she stirs.

"Feeling any better?" Cam asks as she leads Corona into a chair and begins lacing her hands up the spindles that hold up the backrest.

"Much better," Corona purrs. She’s still keeping her legs spread obscenely wide under the table, though. Cam can’t see if there’s any improvement there, not under the thick layer of salve. Without necromancy to speed the process along, it probably isn’t visually apparent yet, anyway. She needs to stop looking.

"You don’t need to tie me up. I promise I’ll eat." Corona manages to _shimmy_ , even with both wrists firmly attached to the back of the chair. "Let me go?"

"Not a goddamned chance," says Camilla. "Not after what you did last time." She’s radiating heat again, too, and Camilla can only pray this is a last spike to flush the drug out of Corona’s system rather than a worsening of symptoms.

"But I'm so thirsty," says Corona. "Please?" She flutters her eyelashes.

"I brought a straw." She guides it between Corona's lips, and Corona sucks hard on it. And this is-- Camilla needs to _not look._

Once she fixes her gaze firmly on the pattern of the plate she’s laid out on the table, this could be any time she’s gotten food into someone too distracted to eat properly. She knows the rhythms and steps of this dance, and if the Warden had never let his lips linger on her fingers-- well, this is different, that’s all. 

The important part is that Coronabeth is eating like she feels better. She’s not doing that thing with her tongue Cam has been trying to forget about, and the sexy noises are completely absent. On a scale of Tridentarius, Coronabeth is _behaving_.

Camilla should feel relieved. They’ll be able to get back to scouring Canaan House for a way out within a week. The thick bramble of emotions tangling low in her belly doesn’t make any sense. Unless--

No, she can’t think about that. She needs to wash the dishes. They’ve been piling up, and Corona is safe where she is.

* * *

"You should rub my back," says Coronabeth when Cam comes back with a stack of clean plates. "My shoulders hurt, and it’s your fault."

Cam considers the merits of this argument as she stows the plates away. She’s done plenty of massage for sore shoulders that are patently _not_ her fault. The Warden had terrible posture. Touch doesn’t have to be sexual. She can’t come up with a decent reason to say no, or perhaps she doesn’t want to. "I’m not letting you loose. I can’t trust you."

Corona gives her a slow, dazzling smile. Probably because she knows she’s won.

"Get on the bed, face down." Cam frees her and weighs the rope in her hands, considering. Maybe the massage is enough of a bribe to keep Corona in line. And then again, it's safer to keep her restrained, just in case the drug overrides Corona's self-interest.

So Cam ties Corona's wrists to the headboard. She keeps it loose, though; it doesn't have to be restrictive. It just has to be enough to give Cam the edge if Corona steps out of line.

It _works_. Corona relaxes into the bed even before Cam can swing her weight into place. Seated in relative comfort astride Coronabeth's thighs, Cam digs her thumbs into the meat of Coronabeth's shoulders. She's tense herself-- waiting for Corona to moan or squirm, any of the patterns they've learned together over the past days.

None of that happens. Instead, Corona goes limp. "Thanks, Cam," she says. Her skin is soft, from the sonic, but faintly musky, which makes sense: the last few days haven't been gentle to her.

Cam works her way methodically down Corona's spine, finding all the knots and pressing into them until they release under her. Corona hums as she slowly turns into a puddle.

This is-- nice. Meditative. The silky texture of Corona’s skin feels good under Cam’s palms, especially as Cam starts on a second pass to check her work. It’s possibly the most pleasant thing Cam has done since coming to Canaan House.

Which is dangerous. Cam isn’t here to have fun. She pulls back abruptly and realizes that the humming is gone, because Corona has fallen asleep again.

This is good. She’s happy about this. Corona is healing. Cam ignores the flutter of nerves in her thoracic cavity as she draws the crisp, fresh top sheet over the sleeping princess. When she unties her wrists, Corona shifts in her sleep, curling up into a loose comma shape with her braid draped over her shoulder. Corona’s hands wrap around her torso, hugging herself.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Cam takes one last temperature reading, slipping the thermometer past lips that have gone slack. The data won't be perfect, but it doesn't have to be-- not now that Corona's temperature is all the way back into the normal range. It's even a little low. Cam's taken temperatures in non-ideal conditions before, and the reading is clear enough to draw a conclusion.

It's over. Tomorrow, Cam will almost certainly be able to put the rope and the thermometer away. They can turn their attention back to their escape.


	6. After

For the first time in three days, Cam opens the door and Coronabeth Tridentarius is _dressed_. Admittedly, it's a shocking lingerie set worn under her diaphanous gold necromancer's robes-- but she's wearing _clothes_ that cover everything. Technically. Close enough.

Her hair is brushed, a mass of shiny gold curls that spill over her shoulders and frame her face, brush the tops of breasts lifted to dizzying heights by deceptively delicate-looking support garments.

"I brought breakfast." It should be easier to keep her wayward thoughts in line, now that Corona isn't naked any more. But her outfit cups and skims and enhances to the point that Camilla realizes, belatedly, that she has just offered breakfast to Coronabeth's cleavage. To cover this up, she takes the tray across to the table and sits heavily in a chair.

Coronabeth herself doesn't seem to mind. She slinks across the room as if she were wearing appropriate everyday clothes and drapes over Camilla's shoulders. "I owe you an apology," she says in a worryingly husky voice.

"Oh?" Cam bites into an apple so that she has an excuse for her lack of a coherent response. 

Corona slides her hand into Cam's grey robe, underneath her shirt, and up her stomach. "You know, I've never apologised for anything in my life."

That, Cam can believe. "That's not an apology, Corona. That's second base." She gently tugs Corona's hands out of her shirt and away from her person.

Today, Coronabeth subsides easily enough. She takes the seat across the table. "I shouldn’t have touched the tapestry. You told me not to touch it, and I touched it anyway, and, well, it served me right."

"So you’ll keep your hands to yourself?"

At that, Corona gives her a conspiratorial smile that causes Cam’s heartbeat to experience an adverse reaction. "Do you want me to?" Her bare foot begins to make its way up Cam’s calf.

Cam recoils. "Yes. Please." Because she can’t _think_ when Corona touches her.

"You don’t want me?"

That’s-- that’s a very complicated question. She’s seen quite a lot of Coronabeth now, and much of it has been more than a little bit intriguing. But she has a firm rule about only fucking people who want to fuck _her._ And right now, it feels very much like Coronabeth is used to trading sex for things she wants. She can’t figure out the game here-- it strains credulity to consider that Corona wants her now that the effects of the drug are out of her system. They both need time to process this, and Cam needs data. "I don’t _not_ want you," she says, very carefully.

Corona pulls back like she’s been stung. Like she’s not used to anyone rejecting her, no matter what trade is on offer. 

Cam aches for her. "Tell you what. If you can go twenty-four hours without any-- flirting-- ask me again." She does not enumerate what _flirting_ has taken place over the past three days. Those thoughts are dangerous.

Coronabeth’s purple eyes narrow and sweep over Cam’s body. There’s nothing to see there. She’s wearing her Sixth house greys. They’re built for practicality, not for appeal. Normally, that would cause a scandal back home. Netting royal Idan genes would be a real coup for the Sixth if they could manage to hang onto them.

Nothing about this is a normal situation. Corona bites into her lower lip, which makes Cam think of exotic fruit and wonder what it tastes like. No, she needs to be realistic. It’s a choice of morning breath or antiplaque rinse. 

"Twenty-four hours," says Corona, rolling the syllables around in her mouth like-- no, Cam is _not_ going to finish that metaphor. "All right."

"Eat," says Camilla. "We’ve got a lot of work to catch up on."

* * *

Corona’s good behavior breaks when they get back to the Third quarters after a reassuringly uneventful day spent trawling through broken-down rooms. "Cam, I’m _bored_ ," she says, draping herself over Camilla like a shawl. At least she’d changed into clothes that actually clothed her before they left the suite.

"I told you the rules." Cam shoves Coronabeth's arm off her shoulder. "24 hours clean. No come-ons, no flirting, no orgasms. You need to heal." 

Corona subsides into the moth-eaten armchair as if she'd meant to land there all along. "But after the twenty-four hours," she says, hooking a distractingly long leg over the arm. She's wearing breeches that look painted on to her thighs, which have _definition_ in them. "After the twenty-four hours, if I ask, you'll come to bed with me?"

Camilla glues her eyes to her notes and licks her lips. Her mouth is suddenly dry. It's the books: they need the right level of humidity. "I'm resetting the clock."

"You're _cruel_ , Camilla Hect."

"Twenty-four hours, Tridentarius," Cam says again, as if repeating the rules will make them easier to follow.

"Then I'm going to have a bath and make us dinner," says Corona, tossing bouncy blonde curls over her shoulder. She has no business having hair that looks that good after spending three days more-or-less bedridden. "If that's permitted?"

"Dinner is encouraged, even." Cam keeps her tone dry and prays this will keep Corona constructively occupied. Anything to keep her busy. Anything that means Cam can focus for long enough to blot out the need that's settled low in her pelvis and won't let go.

* * *

Cam catches herself watching the clock. Six hours pass without incident. She struggles to fall asleep-- seven, eight, nine-- and when she finally wakes up again it's almost lunchtime, and it's been eighteen hours since she reset the clock.

Coronabeth brings her eggs and toast in bed. "I eliminated another three rooms while you were sleeping. Nothing of note. The particulars are on the master map."

"You could have woken me," Cam protests.

"You looked like you needed the rest." 

Cam re-screens the rooms while Corona pouts at her. Apparently, Corona had been paying attention before the tapestry incident-- Cam can’t find anything that isn’t in Corona’s report.

"Sorry," she says afterward. "You did good. I just--"

"I understand," says Corona. "Old habits--"

Cam nods and turns away before Corona can finish her sentence.

* * *

For dinner, Corona makes fish while Camilla tallies up her notes. She's added five entries to her list of caches of equipment that they can use to sustain themselves once the kitchen stores run out and two methods of getting off-planet that have less than a 30% chance of getting them somewhere useful in one piece. The plans might come in handy if they get really desperate. Camilla hopes it doesn't come to that.

She's desperately trying to figure out a way to improve those odds, combing over the same data again to see if she can make it tell a different story-- the Warden wouldn't have to read it this many times, but her memory has never been what his was-- when Corona moves in behind her and takes her pencil away.

"Come eat," she says.

The fish is solidly passable, and the exertion of the day settles heavy into Cam's muscles. 

Maybe Corona is waiting until after dinner to make her move.

But no-- the Crown Princess of Ida curls up in that same ratty armchair and produces a _romance novel_. "You can keep working if you want," she says. "But I'm taking a break."

A break isn't a bad idea. She pulls out her charts and begins to update her cross-referencing, which is always soothing. As a treat, she uses the good pens to color-code the index.

"Sixth?" says Corona. She's using her book to cover the lower half of her face, which really shouldn't be provocative. "Is that really how you _relax_?"

"I didn't bring any novels." Back on the Sixth, she had plenty of novels, and the Warden had even more. They'd shared their stock, and occasionally enacted dramatic readings. But they'd left almost all of them at home, reasoning correctly that there wouldn't be time to enjoy them during the Lyctor trials.

"Catch," says Corona.

Automatically, Cam puts up her hands, just in time to save herself from taking a book to the face. She smooths out the dogears and turns it so she can see the cover. _The Scarlet Sword of Cynthia Duos_. It's one Cam's read before-- Dulcie had sent a copy with one of her letters because the story was so outrageously over-the-top. She and the Warden had taken it in turns to read it out loud, and laughed until their sides hurt.

She can read it again. She flips open the cover and can practically hear his voice. It's a good memory.

The story isn't quite how she remembers it. The plot, though still ridiculous, is slightly more cogent than her recollection, stringing together a story with dubiously plausible acts of piracy and an enormous quantity of puns involving the word "sin", so many that she's sure her brain has repressed them in self-defense. She's also beginning to suspect Palamedes skipped over some of the raciest bits when it was his turn to re-enact.

Halfway through the book, she catches herself fidgeting on her chair and makes herself stop before Corona notices. It's been a long week and the racy scenes are _really_ racy. (She's worrying for nothing. Corona doesn't stir from her perch.)

Slowly, the realization dawns on Cam: it's been twenty-four hours and then some. And Corona hasn't asked her to bed, which means that there's a very real chance that Corona never wanted any of the lewd things she spent three days intimating. (She was _drugged_ , Cam reminds herself.)

Not that Cam ever had any _real_ expectations, anyway. She's the Warden's Hand, a dusty Sixth librarian-- hardly a fit match for Princess Coronabeth.

If she had hoped, hoped so much she hadn't dared run probabilities-- well, disappointment is all she deserves for letting her mind stray from the task and the facts at hand. 

Across the room, Corona yawns and stretches. She sets aside her book and walks alone to the bedroom. Camilla very carefully does not think about the precise shade of pink of Coronabeth's nipples. That can be for later, when she's safely tucked into the cavalier's cot that’s still in the parlour. She'll take care of herself when it's safe. When Corona can't hear or see or smell her.

Coronabeth looks back over her shoulder. Gives her a sultry look through her eyelashes, which is a hell of a feat when Corona is over half a foot taller than her and standing besides. "Well, Camilla Hect? Are you joining me?"

Cam scrambles to her feet with unseemly haste.

* * *

"The first thing you need is a bath," says Corona, apropos of nothing.

Camilla drops her hands from the hem of her tunic. "What?"

"While we're still here. While the hot water still works. A bath. Surely you've heard of the concept?"

"I have," allows Camilla, waiting every moment for the trap to spring.

"I had a miserable three days," says Corona, very quietly. "I wanted you, and you wouldn't let me have you. And you took care of me. Don't give me that look. I know what being taken care of is like. I'm a terrible patient, you know."

Camilla manages a weak smile.

"And-- before-- if I got sick, she'd take care of me, and if she got sick, I'd take care of her. And you took care of me."

A terrible thought occurs to Camilla. "You never--"

"You've got a prurient mind, Sixth," says Coronabeth, her painted mouth tipping up. "I like it. No, we never. We took care of each other like sisters-- it was never anything more sordid than that. I would take care of you in a very different way. And I don't think you object. You know, lots of people look at me. That's the whole point of me. Has anyone ever looked at you, Camilla Hect? Really looked?"

"The Warden--" she begins, and the words wither on her tongue. Because he did look at her-- he saw her-- all her capabilities laid out before him, honed to the sharpest edge flesh could take. But he never saw through all that to the needy core of her, the pieces that were only ever human and flawed. Maybe he thought that was beneath her. If he was even a sliver less brilliant than she thought he was, she might never find out.

"That's what I thought," Coronabeth continues bluntly, taking silence as assent. "Sixth-- you took care of me. Let me take care of you. I'll be cross otherwise."

It's horribly euphemistic, in Camilla's view. And yet-- "Fine."

"There's a good girl. Take off your clothes." Coronabeth doesn't even look behind her. She sails straight into the bathroom and fusses with the taps, the door hanging open behind her.

And-- in spite of herself-- Cam wrenches off her tunic, strips off her leggings, and lobs the whole nonsense into the laundry basket. Naked, she joins Coronabeth at the side of the tub, which has begun to steam. "That water's too hot."

"You like it cooler?" Corona twists the knob, and Camilla watches tepid water pour forth.

It has nothing to do with her personal preferences, she tells herself. It's just that she likes all her skin in one piece. After the fight with Cytherea, she's tried it the other way and she's not in a hurry to repeat the experience.

When the temperature is acceptable, she shuts off the tap and slides into the tub, the displacement of her body forcing the extra water to gurgle down the overflow valve. She can scrub herself off, and then--

Corona's hands land on Cam's shoulders. Her thumbs dig into the muscles. Cam yelps.

"Are you always this tense?" demands Corona.

"Probably." No one has ever touched her like this before. In another lifetime-- before-- she had touched him, after any one of the million times he'd strained his neck hunched over some book. _This isn't efficient, Cam_ , he'd said, _but_ _it feels good._ When she'd had the time, that was enough to convince her to keep doing it, giving her time to him so that he could keep working.

"I don't know how you live like this." Corona gentles out her hands, working through the tightness in the muscles more gradually.

Cam doesn't have an answer for that. She lets herself sink deeper into the tub, aware of muscle fibers relaxing degree by degree. Maybe it should worry her, the warmth of the glow beginning to settle over her body. It could be a spell, a trap, a vulnerability. But she can't bring herself to care.

Corona puts her mouth on Cam’s neck, and Cam obligingly tilts her head so Corona can whisper against her skin. "You might like being touched almost as much as I do." 

There’s a response to that: about data and adequate basis for comparison, about how Cam has always believed that she prefers touching to being touched. She opens her mouth to explain. A rich, ripe, sexy moan-- a sound Cam has never before made in her _life--_ falls out instead.

"I didn’t know you had it in you, Sixth." Corona winds one of her ridiculous arms across Cam’s damp chest to rub the inside of Cam’s knee. Her legs fall apart at even that little provocation, and, may she one day be forgiven, she whimpers.

"You know, I think we’re going to have to wash your hair sooner than I’d planned, because otherwise, I'm never going to keep my hands off the rest of you." Corona nips at Cam’s ear and then pulls back. "But after that, I'm going to make you feel so good."

"None of this is necessary. You could just fuck me." Cam points out. Her voice sounds breathy with it.

"I have to make sure you get clean," Coronabeth says, affecting piousness. "You got so dirty taking care of me."

While it's accurate that Cam had barely gotten in a sonic while she was-- preoccupied, that's not the way the syllable rolls off Corona's tongue.

In spite of the innuendo, though, Corona does begin scooping water onto her hair and-- it's not even _good_ hair. It's practical, familiar, comfortable. She cuts it every three weeks, like clockwork, so that no one can grab it and pull in a fight. But Corona acts like it's as silky and luxurious as her own hair, rubs sweet soaps into it until Camilla feels like a stranger in her own body, smelling of someone else, vibrating with a kind of pent-up energy she's never experienced before. "Not your usual scent?" Corona teases.

"No." It isn't. She doesn't need to elaborate.

Except then Corona puts her lips behind Camilla's earlobe and whispers: "I like smelling my soap on you," and Camilla makes a terrible noise that exposes everything all over again.

"You had better not have been rummaging around the old Lyctoral studies for any more ancient drugs."

"It wasn't fun," says Corona, abruptly serious. "Look, I know you think I had the easy end of the stick and maybe I did. But it wasn't fun, and I won't do the same to you just to prove a point. Give me some credit."

"Sorry." She doesn’t know how to explain the things she’s feeling, not while Corona’s fingernails scrape over her scalp, making her spine tingle.

"You’re allowed to enjoy things, you know." There’s a meditative silence while Corona rinses Cam’s hair. Once all the soap is gone, she continues. "I plan to enjoy you very much."

Camilla is naked. Corona can hear her breath hitch, see her chest move, feel the vibration under the fingers resting lightly just below her clavicle.

"Is that okay with you?" Corona’s tone is mocking, but playful with it.

"I can’t wait." Which is honest, but not a truth Cam had meant to divulge.

"Oh, you can wait. I waited for days to have you. We’re going to do it right."

"Okay." How can she argue? Corona keeps sliding her soap-slick hands over Cam's shoulders and down Cam's spine. Corona is every bit the pirate Cynthia Duos was in the book: stealing touches, setting her ablaze with sensation, forcing her to walk the plank. Cam might stay here forever, quivering and burning on the precipice, until Corona pushes her off the drop.

By the time Corona's hands slip off her back down to her flank, she feels boneless and overheated. Her shoulders try to bunch back up again and only make it halfway.

"I thought you were relaxing," says Corona. At some point, she's shucked off her shirt, which means that _topless Coronabeth Tridentarius_ keeps smoothing her hands along Cam's sides.

Cam does not feel very relaxed.

"I can stop if you're not into it."

Cam can't say _I want you so much it scares me_ out loud, so she settles for: "No, don't stop. It's okay."

"Good, because I don't want to stop." She leans in-- _topless Coronabeth Tridentarius--_ and nips Cam's ear. It catches Cam off-guard, and she gasps.

Corona laughs as she splashes warm water over Cam's belly, and it's musical. Siren song. Cam drowns in it. "There's my girl. Stay with me."

 _I'm not yours_ , Cam wants to argue, and then Corona slides a slick soapy hand up her stomach and over her breast and realizes that her argument is, in several key ways, not even true. She belonged to the Warden-- _belongs_ to the Warden, will belong to him again, unless she's failed-- but here, in this place, she belongs to Coronabeth as well.

"You're thinking too much," says Corona, and catches her nipples between her third and fourth fingers. 

And-- maybe this can be simple, the predictable call and response of hand on breast, the kind of sensation that Cam has shared with strangers and summoned by herself. Except gentle tugging has never before connected the link between exposed tissue and the underlying root system of her nervous system, never applied current to the pathways and used magnetism to _pull_ on the coil drawing tighter in her belly. She whimpers, almost in self-defense.

Heat pools viscous between her thighs underneath the water line. Her eyes fall shut-- the alternative is trying to maintain a cogent train of thought with Coronabeth Tridentarius's breasts splintering the rail ties underneath it every time she catches an eyeful. Even with that particular overwhelming stimulus eliminated, she's panting.

"Can you come like this?" asks Corona, after a while.

"Don't know." She's never come like this before, but Corona's making a persuasive argument. Cracking open an eye, Cam can see the speculation naked on Corona's face, like maybe this is a group project they can tackle together. Well, Camilla doesn't mind group projects if there's at least one person in the group she trusts.

"While I'd like to keep you here all night making those noises, I want to make you come even more."

This, Cam judges as the truth, if only because prevarication wouldn't serve Coronabeth’s current agenda. 

"All right," says Camilla, reluctantly. The throb low in her belly has taken her higher-order thought processing offline.

"Good," says Coronabeth. "Now dry off and come to bed."

Camilla knows that there are probably hundreds of people who would kill to get the invitation she's just gotten. None of them have ever had to contend with the sheer power and intensity of the Crown Princess of Ida in person, probably. It’s normal to feel nerves going into a conflict.

Then again, Camilla Hect has never backed down from a fight because of a little fear.

* * *

As it transpires, Corona does not actually allow Cam to dry herself off. Instead, she wraps her in a huge bath sheet and towels her off until her skin tingles.

"I can--" Camilla begins.

"I have no doubt that you can do many things, Camilla Hect. I saw your duel with Marta the Second. Come on." Corona takes hold of Camilla's arm and leads her back to the bed. "The question is: can you let other people do things for you?"

Cam doesn't quite know the answer to that. On the rare occasions anyone ever tried to help her do anything, it was uncomfortable every time. But her options are mild discomfort in Coronabeth Tridentarius's bed and mild discomfort alone on Naberius Tern's abandoned cot. The choice is obvious. She lets Corona pull her along.

* * *

The bedroom hasn’t changed since they left it. Same bed, same rumpled covers, same garish color scheme. Only now, it’s charged with thick anticipation. Only now, it contains Coronabeth Tridentarius, resplendent and naked.

"Get on the bed," Corona tells her in a matter-of-fact tone that brooks no argument.

Cam does. She lets Corona push her down onto the sheets. They aren't fresh anymore; they smell like Corona.

Corona settles down next to her and places a hand low on Cam's belly, where a line of hair leads down from her navel. "Now, where do you want to start?"

It's difficult to think with Corona touching her like that. Cam stares into the wild violet of the eyes of the Crown Princess of Ida, feels dull and drab and absolutely _pinioned_ by the dazzling creature currently propped up on her elbow. "Please, Coronabeth." Her tongue feels leaden in her mouth. She swallows and tries again. "Please let me touch you."

"Oh, l like hearing that." Corona's smile glows like a furnace, like an incinerator. "You can go on."

Cam feels a little steadier. "Please let me touch you, Corona. I've wanted you for days. And you've wanted me too." She rolls onto her side-- Corona allows this-- and from there, swings a leg on top of her.

"That's not asking politely."

"Do you want me to ask politely? Or do you want me to fuck you?" It's all byplay, because Corona's foot has wrapped around Cam's calf and dug in, pulling her close. Cam runs a hand up past Corona's knee and raises an eyebrow, because Corona's legs are desperately smooth. 

She's also a lot more perceptive when she's not drugged out of her mind, because she catches Cam's eyebrow and shrugs the question off. "Ianthe figured out how to adjust the hair follicles and did it for herself. I badgered her until she did it for me, too."

"But you still have hair here." Cam takes the excuse and runs her fingers through damp golden curls, luxuriating in discovering how slick Corona is, under her, _because_ of her.

"Some things are a favor too far, even for a sister." Corona rolls her hips against Cam's hand. "Besides. You like it."

Cam does like it. She should hate the way Coronabeth slices truths out of her like they’re diseased organs for the royal collection. She ought to say something to head this familiarity off before it gets entrenched in their relationship; Cam has only ever given her deep truths to a select few other people. But Palamedes is dead and Dulcie is deader, and anyway, she has more productive things to do with her mouth.

She kisses down the front of Corona's body, not to tease but to telegraph her intentions. Corona winds her fingers in Cam's cropped hair and helps her down.

It's everything Cam tried not to imagine. Slickness under Cam's tongue, the easy give when she slips a finger inside. Corona bucks a little when she doesn't follow it up with a second, but they have the night to explore. Right now, Cam only needs one finger, to seek out the areas of Corona's body that make her twitch and keen, especially when she finds the right way to move her tongue against Corona's clit.

"Oh, you're _good_ at that," says Corona. Her breath hitches. "You hear the rumors about the Sixth House and think they can't be true, not about a bunch of librarians who won't do anything without a form, and here you are now proving that they all-- _fuck_!"

That's one orgasm, the first of the night, and Camilla knows that there's more where that came from, but Corona's pulling her up, taking hold of her hands, pushing her back onto her back and straddling her hips. Cam could probably get free, even though Corona's massive: just then, though, Corona sweeps Cam's wet finger into her mouth and begins licking it clean.

"Why didn't you let me-- I wanted to-- Corona-- _please_." Camilla is aware that she's babbling and shuts the hose off at the spigot.

Corona applies suction and then pulls Cam's finger free with an audible _pop_. "I told you. I want to make you come."

"But--"

"You had three full days to make me come, if that's what you wanted to do. And I gave you one. Now it's my turn."

One. As if it was a favor Corona was doing for Cam. As if Cam wouldn't have happily settled in to give her at _least_ four more, to feel that gorgeous flutter, wilder and more violent every time they reach a new peak--

"Now you're beginning to understand. I want you to want me, and then I want to bring you to satisfaction. You understand what it is to want that." Corona's hands close over Cam's breasts. She's struck again by how _long_ they are, how much like his they are-- but if he ever had Corona's facility with nipples, he never demonstrated it to her. "You liked this in the bath, do you-- oh, _there_ you are."

Humiliatingly, Cam mewls. She's arching and writhing, and Corona's weight has pinned her hips to the bed. Her thoughts won't line up properly, and she becomes a creature of motion and need, trapped by her own passivity.

It turns out, she _can_ come like this, when it's Coronabeth Tridentarius leaning over her and touching the tips of her breasts with such exquisite precision. It's a small thing, a minor convulsion, the first sip of water after a workout that tastes so impossibly good you know you're about to down the rest of the bottle. Still, she makes a token protest, tries to haul her way up through the thickness of her own arousal and past the voluptuous curves atop her.

Corona presses her back down against the bed. "I’m not done with you."

Cam tries to conceal her relief, the way her hips move as Corona’s hand snakes back down her body, followed by the rest of her.

"You're so lean and controlled," Corona continues. "I want to know what you're like off the leash."

This is just a different kind of collar, but there's no use trying to point that out, not with Corona's tongue swirling around her navel. "You have the intrinsic morals of a skeleton servitor controlled by committee," Cam says instead. It comes out breathless.

"I know," says Coronabeth. She nudges Cam’s thighs further apart. "Isn't it _fun_?"

She must not want an answer, because she touches Cam then, exploring, and all Cam’s breath expels itself in a hiss. "Want you wetter," Corona says, and, before Cam can protest about the limitations of biology and bodies, Corona retrieves a bottle from her nightstand and pours lube liberally on her fingers so they slide easily inside Cam.

Corona’s _watching_ herself fuck Cam. The pornographic soundtrack of flesh against well-lubricated flesh rings in her ears. It’s embarrassing to let someone have this much control over her, to let go and let someone else tend the needs of her body. 

Well, more or less. Cam _can’t_ come like this, not without more direct stimulation, but that doesn’t save her from thrusting up against Corona’s hand. 

Sweat beads up on her body and drips. She braces her feet on the mattress, looking for leverage, desperate for _more_ , and Corona compensates to keep her balanced there on the knife’s edge. 

"You’re even more of a sight than I imagined."

The sound Camilla makes is _not_ a response to that, but an involuntary reaction to Corona’s talented fingers inside her. She’s not-- she’s not decorative, she’s _useful_ , except Corona is watching her as if she is and holding her down until she isn’t.

The pleasure grows sharp, overwhelming and insufficient at once. Cam’s desperate, squirming under a touch that will never get Corona the results that she wants. She has the missing data-- she can share it. "I can’t-- I need--"

"Ah," says Corona. "I was beginning to wonder." She reaches out with her other hand and presses _just so_. It’s so much, and Cam was already so close--

It doesn’t take much more than that. Cam’s muscles go taut and lax, and she shatters.

Corona works her through it until the shuddering stops, and then draws away. "I wish you’d been louder. I want to hear you scream."

"Gimme fifteen minutes," Cam says, still dazed. Because she has some manners, even when she’s incapacitated, she adds: "Was good."

" _You’re_ good, Camilla Hect." (Cam is starting to get an involuntary reaction to the way Coronabeth says her full name. She didn’t realize that she had the wherewithal to have _any_ reaction.) "Don’t think I won’t hold you to that. I could watch you like that all night."

The feeling is starting to return to Cam’s limbs. "I’m not your spectacle, princess," Cam manages. It’s only slightly garbled. The message must go through, because Corona grins, a familiar fever-bright thing, but she’s _sober_ now, and Cam is allowed to enjoy it. To meet it, to reach out for the body that she’s wanted to a shameful extent once she’d realized she might conceivably be allowed to have it.

"Really?" says Corona. "I’m not sure the data supports your conclusion."

"You have one point of data," Cam points out. She sits up and tries to roll Corona onto her back, but Corona resists, arresting her progress halfway by swinging a heavy leg up and over both of Cam’s. "That doesn’t support anything." Their noses meet on level ground. Cam can feel the intensity of Coronabeth’s focus, her competence and her confidence, and finds, at least here, that they are a match.

"Doesn’t it?" Corona feigns idleness, but Cam knows her too well to be taken in. Besides, her hand has snuck around to land smack on Cam’s buttocks. It pulls them close so that the flesh-covered promontories of their hip bones clack together. "Then I’ll need more data to prove it."

* * *

Cam ends up stretched out on her front, utterly exhausted. The sweat is cooling, and they’re going to need at least a sheet at some point, but the blankets have gone-- somewhere, and Cam’s not entirely sure her knees are functional. They can cope with it later.

"Now that we know each other better," Corona says, trailing long fingers along Cam’s spine in a way that’s frankly hypnotic, "Why don’t you tell me what you’re _really_ trying to do?"

It’s probably a bad idea, but Cam is weak in the aftermath. Spills out the whole story, about Palamedes and everything he’d meant to do and how everything had gone so terribly wrong. She always told him everything. It’s habit.

"The thing is," Corona says once Cam is done, "I’m not really useful for much, but I _do_ know people."

There aren’t any other people on the planet. That’s the whole problem. "What’s your point?" 

"The Lyctor told us she’d get us off the planet."

"Do you really trust her?"

"Not really. But she patched you up-- saved Judith’s life-- and that counts for a little." Corona twirls hair around her fingers and releases it. "More to the point: there’s no escape hatch off this rock."

"We still haven’t explored--"

"What’s the probability, Camilla Hect? I know you can do the math-- you calculate things all the time in your notebook. How likely is it that we can escape without help?"

Cam buries her face in the pillow. She hadn’t wanted to do that math. Too scared of what results she might get.

Corona gives Cam another three beats to answer, and then says: "So. I don’t think we have a choice. We trust her, because it costs us nothing, and we have no better options. And-- you need a necromancer."

"Yes."

"Specifically, you need Harrowhark Nonagesimus."

This is safer territory. Cam "Not necessarily. Any sufficiently powerful adept might do. Your sis--"

"You need Harrowhark Nonagesimus," Corona interrupts. "There’s no one else likely to help who has her aptitude."

Cam lets the evasion slide. "What do you propose?"

"It doesn’t do anyone any good if you break yourself tilting at windmills."

"So?"

"So we rest. We train. We stay strong. And when they come for us, we’ll be ready."

It’s a good plan. Objectively, it’s better than Cam’s plan. "You’re just trying to get out of exploring."

"Well, yes." Corona laughs. "Also, I want you in my bed. That was fantastic."

Cam ought to be immune to flattery. Instead, she lets Corona pull her in. She ends up with her head pillowed just above one of Corona’s breasts, so she can hear Corona’s heartbeat. 

Sometimes, rarely, the Warden had let her lie like this with him. Maybe it’s that memory that stirs her tongue. "I miss him."

"I know." There’s a pause, where Corona’s breathing fills Cam’s ears. "I’m not any good at comforting people, you know. But-- in spite of everything-- I miss her too."

Cam isn’t good at _being_ comforted. She decides it works out in the end, and lets Corona wind those long octopus-arms around her waist.

Several moments pass. "You’re not alone," Corona murmurs into her hair. "And if you’re with me, then I’m not alone, either."

* * *

"This isn't a charity pick-up," says Camilla, when the BoE shuttle finally lands. "I have information you need to know."

The woman in fatigues reaches back and touches the barrel of her gun, like the cold metal will provide her with much-needed security on a hostile planet. Camilla needs no such reassurances. The knives strapped to her back are comfortably heavy.

"We can't leave the wizard here," says the woman. "Team, fan out. Find her."

"She's hiding in the east wing," volunteers Corona. "The one with all the plants."

"We'll take that into consideration. Go!"

A team of six fans out and disappears past the ruined entrance.

"I have information you need," Camilla says again, doggedly holding her ground. She's got the bag around her neck and the goddamned Princess of Ida at her side. She can hold as long as she needs to.

"You sure are confident for someone who got themself stranded," says the woman. "Come on board. We'll negotiate."

Camilla Hect steps onto the ramp, and her footfalls ring out against the metal. The death knell of a planet that died a myriad ago, finally abandoned for good.

She has work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I don't often do this, but you may not know that I also write original fiction. If you're interested in what I do here, you might also be interested in checking out my [forthcoming novel](https://jpnoether.com/books/). And if you're not, that's totally okay, too! (Self-promo is _weird_ , y'all.)
> 
> Either way, big thanks to y'all for coming along along on the ride. You make it worthwhile.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm supposed to mention the working title of my doc, which is "I am NOT writing sex pollen". The existence of this fic proves that I'm a big liar about this. I'm not sorry. Or tired.
> 
> For maybem, who let me yeet words into her inbox back in June, when I was _really_ not supposed to be writing sex pollen, because I was trying to finish a much happier fic than this one before HARROW THE NINTH came out.


End file.
